Can You Hear Me?
by XxXKlainebowsXxX
Summary: After her parents are in a car crash, fourteen-year-old Carmen goes to stay with her second-cousin Monica and her family. Since Carmen is deaf, everyone has to adapt so that they can communicate with her. Carmen is faced with new challenges everyday, like trying to talk to people who can hear and can't sign, and moving from her small California town to New York. T for mild language


**I'm Back! And no, I did not abandon 'Changing a Face.' I'm a little bored with it at the moment and I got a waterfall of ideas, so be patient and I will update. P.S. If you haven't read it yet, please check it out! It is a Friends fic.**

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Suddenly, everything was shaking. Carmen awoke suddenly and grasped onto the suicide handle above her head. She looked to the front seat of the car. Her mother had turned around and was screaming something at her, but Carmen was too groggy and shaken up to read her mother's frantic lips. She looked out the window and realized that the car was spinning on a sheet of ice. She lowered her head and thought a quick prayer. She saw that her mother was trying to sign her something. Her left hand was held in front of her, as if in a sling. Her right hand started behind the left, and she swung it upwards so that her slightly curved fingers were pointing towards the sky. _Out. _Her mother signed it over and over again. _Out. Out. Out. _She was frantic. Carmen could tell that her mom was screaming the word as she signed it. She abruptly pointed toward the door. She wanted Carmen to jump out of the car? _OUT! OUT! _Carmen grasped the door handle and looked at her mother. She nodded fervently, and Carmen popped the handle and tumbled out of the car. She sat up and watched the white SUV crash spectacularly into a brick wall. The whole front end was totally smashed in, as well as one side. Carmen watched for what seemed like hours, silent tears rolling down her face, as fire trucks and ambulances and police cars rushed to the scene and pried open the vehicle, removing the two people from inside. Only after both of her badly injured parents were packed safely away in the ambulance did anyone even glance at Carmen.

Two police officers and a paramedic checked her over to make sure she wasn't hurt. They carried her over to an empty ambulance and sat her in the open back part. Then they cleaned a scrape on her elbow and slapped a large bandage on it. One policewoman stood in front of Carmen, and her male partner stood next to her. The lady was repeatedly trying to talk to Carmen, and Carmen was betting that none of them knew sign language, so she sat quietly and watched the woman's mouth move.

"Are you okay? Does anything hurt?" She asked, but Carmen didn't reply. "Is something wrong with her?" She asked her partner, but he didn't know the answer, either. Carmen touched her right index finger to her chin, then to her ear. It was the sign for _Deaf_, but of course they didn't know that. Carmen was hoping they would gather that it was sign language at all.

She tried again. This time, she first touched her chest with her index finger, then her chin, then her ear. _I'm deaf. I'm deaf._

One more try, and they seemed to get it. "She's trying to sign something," The police woman finally said.

_Not trying, _Carmen thought.

"Is she deaf?" The woman asked her partner.

Carmen nodded quickly.

"If she were deaf, how would she know what I just said?" The woman narrowed her eyes with suspicion and crossed her arms, getting in Carmen's face. Carmen did a mental facepalm.

She tapped her bottom lip a few times with her finger, and even though that's not actually the sign for lips, it seemed to work. The lady turned to her partner.

"We should get her out of the cold. I'll take her back to the station and get a translator for her." The woman said. So far, the guy hadn't said a word.

_Thank you. I hate trying to talk to people who don't know sign. _Carmen thought. _Well, stupid people who don't know sign._

The lady turned back to Carmen. "We..will..take..you..to..the..police..station. You..are..not..in..trouble," She said slowly, enunciating each and every word carefully. She was, of course, assuming that Carmen couldn't read lips sideways, as if she were new to the whole 'deaf' thing and was just learning how everything worked. What this lady didn't know was that Carmen had been deaf for fourteen years- since she was born- and could read lips from nearly every direction, except upside-down or if the person was turned around so she couldn't see their lips at all.

She got up and followed the lady to the squad car, which she climbed into and curled up on the seat. For the next twenty minutes, all she could think about was her parents. Were they going to be okay? What was going to happen to her if they weren't?


End file.
